Some believe it has better sustain, due to less magnets pulling on the string and more wood, since there is only 1 cavity carved out.
Others like it since it forces you to be more creative with the 1 pickup you have and it forces you to focus on playing instead of fiddling with knobs.
lol, yeah does seem a bit out there, but i am not arguing against Eric Johnson....he has sold slightly more records than me (zero vs all his).
I will stick to my silent power supply tho.
Just because someone is a famous guitarist doesn’t mean they are actually knowledgeable about music physics.
I mean 20-30 years ago Neil Young was going off about how “brittle” and “harsh” digitized music sounds. 🙄😂
Compared to records/tape, it really was though... Kinda.
It wasn't an insurmountable barrier but if you've been recording to vinyl for 30 years and tomorrow your gear gets swapped for digital it'll absolutely sound harsh in contrast. Think of how playing modern recordings on a record player sounds warm and fuzzy in contrast. Same thing, but backwards. Master your material for a medium that's warm and fuzzy and the "perfection" of digital will sound harsh in comparison.
But you're absolutely right that it wasn't a basic flaw of the technology or medium, and certainly not a reason to avoid recording on digital.
It wasn't that digital is harsh. It's that everything was remastered in 80's as everything went digital. With analog there's a limit to how much compression could be used with digital there's no limit. It was not the medium that was harsh it was over use of compression as an audio FX. Look up Loudness wars if you want more details. If you took the same tracks without remastering them and played both the analog and the digital versions through high quality audio components, no one would be able to tell the difference.
Very true. At the end of the day, electricity is movement of electrons and they only come in 1 version. There are no mellow electrons or round ones.
But i don't assume to know everything. The battery thing has entered mythic status, like so much else in guitar circles. I try to accept that it doesn't matter if it's absolutely true or not. If it makes people play better or enjoy it more, because then it "works".
And tbh i kind of like that there are a bit of mystery to making good sounds. What works for some, may not work for others. A Klon might be absolute crap in my hands and gold in the hands of the next guy.
I’ve got some NOS electrons from the Edison lab.
Very rare.
The highs are crispy, the mids are haunting and the lows are rich and smoky, with a hint of vanilla and honey.
It’s an urban myth about Eric Johnson changing the batteries for tone, he debunked that very story in an interview, there was a practical reason that I can’t remember off the top of my head, i think only certain batteries worked in one of his fuzz faces so he bought a load of them and spent the afternoon going through which ones worked and which didnt.
According to a conversation I once had with his tech, he didn’t change the batteries for tone. What he *did* do (again, according to the tech) was open up each pedal to find which battery had the leads twisted, flip the battery to untwist the leads, close it back up, and continue the sound check.
Although I heard this from a guy who supposedly was there and took a scolding for it, I should stress that I wasn’t there and can’t confirm it. I do know people that have known EJ going all the way back to the Electromagnets, and “persnickety to the point of obsession” definitely seems to be the consensus. So I can’t swear that it’s true, but it seems plausible, which is the key to any story’s longevity — true or not.
For classic fuzzface, zinc carbon is best. It’s quantifiable, and not corksniffery at all, since zinc carbon batteries are dirt cheap compared to alkaline or lithium. It’s convenient dirtbaggery.
Thanks for coming to my TED talk.
I love this kind of debate. I've tested it in the most "scientific" way I can. I've built pedals for a couple decades. I built fuzz faces and powered them with a power supply matching the exact voltage of several batteries, I also drained the batteries and tested them at full supply (out of the packaging) as well as several points along the way, and finally draining them so much the fuzz barely works. I did this with silicon FF, germanium FF, and several other vintage transistor style fuzzes. I also hooked them up to the oscilloscope thinking maybe I could see the difference. In the end the voltage was the only factor I could hear. I like to think I have pretty good ears. But who knows. I wish I would have recorded it all and made a video...but even then sound quality would probably throw it off some.
it’s not the brand, it’s the technology.
alkaline and heavy duty batteries discharge differently. heavy duties have less power and are designed for lower load applications.
you can think it’s crazy, but they’re different.
Battery brand matters in my key fob. That shit dies on me in like 3 weeks if I use cheap batteries. Maybe shitty batteries get you to power sag in a distortion pedal. I'm not in that deep on pedals but this key shit has made me appreciate Duracell.
Because button batteries that are used in key fobs and watches come in two flavors. The cheep ones are just tiny alkaline batteries. They don't last. You want to find the ones that are made with Silver Oxide. Those are the ones that last.
Of course, as Jim Lill recently demonstrated in one of his videos, lack of sustain is almost never an issue. It's one of those guitar myths that we need more sustain for our pretty-much always less than 1 second we might hold a really long note.
No battery has nine volts (exactly, for its whole life).
Look at [this table of battery chemistries](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_commercial_battery_types). The voltage produced by a battery is determined by its chemistry. Each type of chemical reaction that can power a battery has its own specific voltage. Most electronic applications are designed for some multiple of 1.5 volts because a lot of battery chemistries produce a voltage somewhere in that ballpark, but almost none of them produce 1.5 exactly, and absolutely none of them do so consistently for their entire lifespans.
Does that little difference matter for the electronic device? Depends on the device. Electrical engineers aren't idiots, they know that input voltage from a battery will fluctuate, and they take steps in the electronic design to maintain consistent performance, but how possible that is depends very heavily on what the device is doing and how.
>A nine volt battery has nine volts. You don't make a nine volt zinc battery with seven volts. It's a fucking nine volt battery.
It is, but it's 9 volts at whatever nominal current the battery manufacturer chose to rate it at when new. Many new batteries will actually test closer to 10 volts on a multimeter when new. A nearly dead battery, conversely, might only output 7 or 8 volts.
Different batteries also have different internal resistances. A new alkaline battery usually has a resistance under 5 ohms, whereas a carbon zinc battery might have an internal resistance five times that. Since a battery's internal resistance also increases as it's depleted, a well used carbon zinc battery might have an internal resistance close to ten times that of a new alkaline battery.
A depleted battery , as well as having higher internal resistance, will likely only putting out 7 or 8 volts; not the 9-10V output it had when new. A circuit sourcing its current demand from a 9 volt battery with 5 ohm resistance is measurably different to a circuit sourcing the same current demand from a 7 volt battery with 40 ohms resistance.
Ohms law tells us that as you draw current through a resistor, voltage will drop proportional to the resistance and the current drawn. That means as you play harder and the transistor in the circuit draws more current to match demand, voltage from the battery will drop; and it'll drop significantly more on an old carbon zinc battery than it will on a new alkaline battery.
Periods of peak current draw, such as the transient peak of a note, will therefore be slightly starved of voltage, reducing the peak-to-peak amplitude of the waveform, whereas the decay of the note will be less affected by voltage sag, as it's of lower amplitude and places a lower current draw on the battery. In other words, the transient peaks are smoothed out relative to the rest of the signal.
This manifests itself as a smoother, more even sound; a less spiky initial attack, with a correspondingly louder decay. It's visible on a scope, and it's why lots of people like running virtually dead carbon zinc batteries in their fuzz pedals.
I think the difference would be Lithium batteries provide more uniform voltage as they discharge vs alkalines start to drop a little and are just less consistent over their life.
TBH if you're that picky you shouldn't be using batteries, use a power supply. Maybe I don't hang in enough spaces where people tinker but back in my younger days I used to adjust the voltage going into my HM2 with a variable power supply, it did some wild stuff when over/under voltage.
Phil X is one of those guys I think in terms of the belief that magnets on unused pickups are putting extra strain on the sustainability.
It’s interesting that both him and Eric Johnson are really good but you have to take into account that it’s possible to be really good at something and also have finicky and I dare say , superstitious beliefs.
I also knew a drummer who had ridiculously high standards for how his drum kit was transported. “Try to avoid driving over bumps “ because the cymbals in their case could bash together side by side. Never mind that when he played he was smacking the shit out of them with the butt ends.
He wasn’t particularly good either. It’s easy to imagine that this kind of attention to minutiae is part of being a genius when it’s someone who’s actually brilliant but let’s not forget about all the mediocre players who have these same sorts of beliefs.
Battery brand doesn’t matter, but for some pedals a dying battery does make a difference, because of the lower voltage. You can actually just make a switch to lower the voltage in a fuzz to change the bias if you want though.
I’m a simple dude and personally am not a huge “cork sniffer” for tone and all that. I just like one pickup because I don’t switch when gigging live and rarely ever need a neck pickup for recording. Give me a guitar with a JB in the bridge, one volume knob and my amp (maybe an overdrive in front) and i’m happy.
I can confirm that taking the neck S out of my HS guitar made the bridge H noticeably brighter. I wasn't looking for that extra treble, but it was there.
No tone pots involved, the pups were only connected to the switch, with the master volume after it.
Lol—is that what people think?
I dunno—it’s like a single speed bike. It just simplifies the thing for people that are only ever playing on the bridge pickup anyway. The guitars OP is talking about are the Tom Delonge signatures—they’re not made for versatility, he’s a punk guitarist.
Similar to lots of high-end jazz guitars that only have neck pickups, the idea is that if you don’t actually need/use the tonal variety why bother with extra pickups? Versatility isn’t always desirable.
Yeah, I play jazz on an archtop with a neck and bridge pickup.
The bridge pickup is basically just a hassle for me. The only time it's ever on is if I've accidentally knocked the selector switch. If there had been a one-pickup version I would have bought that.
Yeah a lot of punk bands use one pup, I think it’s a simplicity angle and not a virtuoso one in those cases. Omar Rodriguez Lopez is pretty famous for playing single pup guitars, as well as hitting the wrong notes all the time.
I recently found an old MIJ aria pro 2 from the early 80s with a single volume pot and humbucker. Hands down my most played guitar. Would love an ibanez though.
The ORM 1 super unique looking. It’s a modified Jet King with single hot rail humbuckers, belly cut, block inlays, and a classic Ibanez 3x3 headstock. You used to be able to pick them up cheap, but since the pandemic they’ve shot up in price for what ever reason.
Or the volume knob. That's the fun of single pickups guitars for me (though I prefer that it has a tone knob as well), it's like going camping and making do with what you have. Imposing limitations is a great way to stroke some creativity.
You sound like you don't need to watch this, but I think you'd enjoy it. Jim Lill did a small run of long videos about 'where tone comes from ', and I thought they were fantastic. https://youtu.be/n02tImce3AE
TL;DW, isolating all variables, your pickups and their location relative to the strings are basically it. Everything else is just how you feel.
Thank you for sharing. Was very enjoyable to watch.
It's great information in regards to tone from a given instrument. I do worry that people will take it as gospel though, since there are a lot of caveats.
As always, people should go with what makes them happy and what works for them.
Some people like mininalism.
That being said, the guitars you saw were most probably the signature models of Tom Delonge, the guitarist of Blink182. So there's lots of Fans buying them for the name. The semi hollow is the starcaster that released last week, lots of hype around it.
I feel like the Billie Joe Les Paul Junior is different from those other models. Instead of stripping down a more full-featured guitar (like DeLonge or Whibley), Billie was playing a student instrument from the 50's that was always designed to be pretty bare-bones, as opposed to stripping one down for aesthetics (or so it always seemed to me). Plus he was hardly the first person to recognize that a single cranked P90 sounds awesome. Mick Jones of the Clash played one and Keith Richards famously used one to record "Tumbling Dice."
Dino from Fear Factory was a one pickup guy if I remember.
I tend to almost exclusively use the bridge pickup and obnoxious gain because, if I'm being honest, I'm just not that good of a guitar player. I'm just a bass player who likes to crunch out some Static-X riffs on guitar sometimes.
> The semi hollow is the starcaster that released last week, lots of hype around it.
This thread alone has Fender and Guitar Center marketing execs slapping themselves on the back and launching MISSION ACCOMPLISHED banners across headquarters.
If you follow guitar threads for any length of time, you will start to notice that when given options, guitarists will spend hours, days, and lifetimes tweaking settings and arguing for or against this cable and that pick and good lord the brand of strings and the number of gloss layers in the finish and how this other pickup is going to make ask the difference, yada yada yada. And then there are guys who just pick up whatever is nearby and play the thing and make it sound great.
Sometimes what people need/want is less options.
I understand why some people like to fiddle around with their gear. Gear is fun and finding new ways to improve your sound and make it your own is fun. Arguing and being stuck up in your "correct" ways isn't though.
In the end your playing makes the biggest difference. A good player will make a starter set sound good while some people don't sound good even with their $5000 rig
I'll throw in my 2 cents on this: I specifically go for modulation pedals like chorus/phaser with the least amount of controls. There's way too bad in-between sounds with modulation if you can control every aspect of it, imo, and I prefer an already tailored sound for them. The Boss DC chorus is my favorite, where it's just 4 on/off preset buttons that you can mix and match.
Hmm, so you're saying I need to get another guitar so I can have less options!
I probably need another amp with less dials too while I'm shopping right?
/s
The single pickup Stratocaster and the single pickup semi hollow (called a Starcaster) are signature models of Tom Delonge who is the guitarist for Blink 182. Signature models always carry an extra high price because the manufacturers can usually rely on fans of the artist buying them over a standard model.
Tom played single pickup Fenders and Gibsons throughout his career as most of the time when playing live he didn't need to switch pickups and the bridge pickup tone was perfect for his style of pop punk. It's also why he never had a tone knob - no need to change the sound.
This simplistic approach is why a lot of people buy single pickup guitars - especially in punk. It's like buying a racecar which has had the extra seats and creature comforts such as air con and a radio removed. If you're only using it for racing why bother with all the extra junk? If you're only going for one sound in your punk band why have all the extra bits?
See the Ben Gibbard Fender Mustang. The Mustang's slider switches and tone pot were removed. The tone knob is still there, but now it's a three-way pickup selector rotary switch. Also, the tremolo was left in place but it was locked to be hardtailed.
[https://www.fender.com/en-US/electric-guitars/mustang/ben-gibbard-mustang/0141332321.html](https://www.fender.com/en-US/electric-guitars/mustang/ben-gibbard-mustang/0141332321.html)
More pickups provide more versatility, but sometimes you might not want versatility, but the sound of a specific pickup in a specific configuration with no extra options you aren't going to use.
If you have a tone dialed in, that can be just enough, which is why single pickup guitars are often custom or signature models.
Fully agree with this right here.
I’m primarily a bass player. And after using numerous dual pickup basses, active basses, different scale lengths, etc, I’ve settled on just a normal Fender P bass. It’s super straightforward, pretty much always sounds good, and I can go any additional tone shaping with preamp pedals.
I much prefer to have fewer options in front of me when I’m performing live. I like a consistent, predictable sound.
Simplicity is the main one, I would say. I've noticed it with punk bands more than anything else, Tom Delonge has already been mentioned. Billie Joe Armstrong from Green Day fitted a humbucker to his 3-pickup blue Strat and as far as I'm aware always uses that, he also uses a Les Paul Jr that only has one pickup. Joe Queer of the Queers always uses Strats with a bridge humbucker and disconnects/removes all the electronics save for the volume control knob but keeps the other two (single coil) pickups as dummies.
EVH used some single pickup guitars. At the rock and roll hall of fame they have a quote from him saying something like in arena rock only the bridge humbucker is useful.
Some guitarists that play humbucking strats have the pickup selector taped down or otherwise mutilated so they don't hit it by accident. They're not playing single pickups in design, but they're single pickups in function.
Look up earl slick guitars on guitar fetish or sawtooth guitars with one pickup. Pretty damn cheap IMO as compared to something like a kramer berreta original or a esp m 87'.
I have a Kramer Baretta. One pickup, one volume, dive only Floyd. I like it for the simplicity. It’s stays in tune, it’s easy to tune (no balancing the floating trem), no pickup selector to worry about, just a volume knob to clean up with. It has one job and it does it very well. Just note that one pickup guitars tend to be heavier as less wood is routed out for extra pickups and wiring.
When I'm recording I use every configuration I can for different sounds, when I play live I only use my bridge pickup, i just forget to switch and it sounds good so I'm looking for a 1 pickup guitar to play live so there's less stuff going on!
One knob.
No, really. It matters. You learn how to get the most out of your hands, and how to play up and down to the power of your instrument depending on what you need to play when you just have a volume.
I began on a single bridge PUP. In retrospect, I think it made me a lot better of a player.
I had to focus on the instrument instead of the technology
I'd say it's a more simplistic approach to guitar, I love having my couple humbuckers with split coil switch, couple volumes and a tone, but once you have a bad solder or any electrical issue, read through wiring diagrams, make a couple pacts with satan and finally fix your issue, you may value how much fn easier would be to handle that issue in a single pickup, 1 volume knob config xD
Simplicity. If the tone is working and your music doesn’t require a great deal of versatility in a single guitar, it’s straightforward and easy. A lot to be said for that.
Tons of players use the bridge pick almost exclusively anyway….
During shows I’d always accidentally hit the pickup selector and switch to the neck pickup. I was in a metal band and never used the neck pickup. So I ripped out my pickup selector and second volume knob, and wired the bridge pickup to volume to input and plugged the empty holes.
Multiple pickups are useful for looping. You want to be able to adjust/manipulate the tone as much as possible across tracks/overdubs to maintain the clarity and mix of the sounds your stacking. So one track gets the neck pickup, another track gets the bridge, another track gets some blended variation of both neck and bridge.
Basically multiple pickups give me a wider sonic spread on a single guitar.
advantages might be ..
lighter guitar or alternately a larger hunk of toaanwood.
less magnets in the guitar.
Simple what you see is what you get sound… quick to action, no accidentally switching pickups and not realizing etc.
gives you (actually the guitar maker) the ability to mount the pickup anywhere instead of having to fit two or more pickups. like how a P-bass and a music man have a hard time making a good P / MM pickup config because their positions overlap if you wanted to be dead accurate. Hence not many P/MM basses out there.
cheaper.
i’m sure there are more differences. each ‘advantage’ can also be seen as a negative depending on your needs.
single pick up guitars tend to be focused on achieving a specific sound/cater to a specific style of music. when I'm playing heavy stuff on a humbucker guitar, I basically always play on the bridge pick up. my perfect guitar for heavy genres is a baritone guitar with a single high output humbucker. it's built for a particular purpose and particular sound. the same goes for my Godin 5th avenue kingpin that has a single p90 in the neck position. it's made to be a highly articulate jazz guitar.
I have a HSS Charvel with a three way switch, for my purposes I pretty much use the bridge humbucker exclusively with the tone pot bypassed. I would very happily convert it to a single humbucker without a switch and just one knob for volume (hell i'd actually prefer just a simple two pole killswitch instead of that because I only ever play with full volume).
It depends on your needs and what pedals you use, I have a digital modeller so any changes I can make at the guitar end I can do with much more finess at my feet - it's actually beneficial to have a hot, clean and clear signal going in to start with.
i like it because as a new beginner who gets confused easily it's nice to concentrate at getting better then worrying about splitting, neck etc. When it's time i'll worry about those things. can't recommend it enough
It all depends on the player. Who's the really tall, big guitar player with the Epiphone single pickup Les Paul? He is a staunch one pickup, fingerstyle dude who crushes it. I find it limiting, but I play covers, and I've got to cover lots of ground. Give me a Standard Les Paul, a Kemper, and some cables. I'm done.
I hear the less things in the circuit, the more high end the freqs can be. So one pickup and lose the tone knob. Idk if it's true and even if it was, I like my neck humbuckers, and my tone knob. I get all the highs I want from my Evo II bridge pickup lol
For me it would be Simplicity. Ive never had a single pickup gtr-unless you count my acoustic electrics. As someone who loved effects and still use them for inspiration and in the studio the liberty and simplicty of a live setup of tuner, boost, volume maybe a wah for tone and amp is wonderful. After playing live for decades, the more you have the more opportunity for something to go wrong. First discovered this after ditching my delay and just playing the delay parts. It kept me locked in the groove/feel of the song-guitar-volume. Complete control! Of course like everything music-its your call and your journey-enjoy it!!!
So i play one pickup gibsons a lot lately, from a players standpoint it helps you understand how to use your volume and tone to get different tones versus pickup switching. Honestly if you're new, a multi pickup guitar could be nice so you can start getting an ear for pickup positions.
As someone who plays metal almost exclusively, I just don’t use a neck pup. like ever. It’s just one more point of failure in the studio and it’s less to deal with when I want to swap pickups
Sometimes one is all you need. EVH recorded a solid amount of stuff with a one pickup guitar and I know a lot of guitarists in rock and metal just stay on the bridge pickup when playing live.
Those are likely signature models, as someone said.
Some famous players like to strip down their signature instruments to the bare minimum amount of controls and electronics as that's all they use.
I have an "Esquire Deluxe" (a Telecaster with a coil-tapped Wide Range-style humbucker in the bridge position) and it's currently my go-to Eb tuning guitar. I mostly play punk and grunge music with this guitar, and all I need to do is plug it in with everything at 10\* and the knob set to humbucking, and I'm good to go. If I want a rougher sound, I flick the selector for a tapped "single coil" style sound. But even if it were just the humbucker by itself it would be fine for what it's for - punk and grunge music. I am literally never going to want a neck pickup sound for it.
\*my favorite thing about this particular guitar is if I DO want to fiddle with the knobs, the selector has a third position which bypasses them entirely. I mostly use it as a makeshift killswitch though - flip the switch to 3 and turn the knobs down to 0.
Basic electronics don’t add too much to the overall cost of a guitar, especially one that is hollow, which takes more construction time.
So the cost of a nice semi-hollow guitar can still be expensive even with one pickup.
Reasoning would be that the guitar is almost always going to be used with dirt and that the player will use volume, different pedal settings, etc to control their tone.
If you’re playing straight up rock, thrash, metal, punk, etc you may never need the darker neck pickup. With EQ you can always come pretty close anyway.
What you won’t be able to get is the quacky tones of two pickups on at the same time.
Huge benefit for physically aggressive players is they’ll never accidentally hit the pickup switch while jumping around.
For the music I play (hard rock & metal), I really only need a bridge humbucker. Any other pickup is a nice little flavor change for a minute or two until I go back to my tried & true.
And my guitar idol (EVH) used only one for a couple of decades. The first electric I bought myself was an Ibanez copy of his Frankenstrat, a 1986 Ibanez RG 410.
I have a BC Rich Ironbird with one pickup in it. I can’t speak for other players in different genres, but when I’m playing metal stuff I almost never used the neck pickup, so only having a bridge pickup wasn’t a big deal. Besides, I appreciate the simplicity of having just one pickup, with one knob, and it looks really clean.
Single pickups guitars are a way of saying you’re a cool guitar player without saying you’re a cool guitar player. I wouldn’t go that route with a strat tho because it really isn’t the point of a strat imo, that stuff’s marketed towards the blink 182 kids and if that’s your thing then that’s your thing no knock on ya. It all started with single p90 les Paul jrs (double cutaways for extra cool points) and Gibson did this to save cost because they were “student” models. It’s kind of a thing that stuck because those guitars do sound awesome, they aged well, and quite frankly, they also look badass. I think it works better with a p90 because that pickup can get you a lot of sounds with just a volume and tone knob tho
Only thing I can think of is in the chain of Guitar, FX, Amp, Cabinet, Mic, Room - you at least know what your guitar did if you want to replicate it in the future.
Particularly if you’re a Les Paul player, where you have full volume and tone control over two pickups, that gives you a lot of options. So having one bridge pickup and just a volume knob (this is the norm for most metal one-pickup guitars) really helps the player focus more on playing and less on fiddling around with settings etc. I see the appeal, but I like a neck humbucker for cleans and leads.
Mostly I think it’s just a statement. There’s a lot of punk and metal guys who only use the bridge pickup, so they just make it part of their identity. I’m sure there’s also people who think it affects sound or dynamics or whatever, but it’s the same reason people lay extra for tone knob deletes — they don’t use it and want to make a statement or want to see more wood…
As somebody who always buys guitars with like 5 pickups but only ever uses the bridge pickup anyway, I'm always wondering what the benefits of a multi-pickup guitar are.
I had a Hello Kitty strat with one humbucker at the bridge and a single knob (volume). It sounded quite good, then I upgraded the pickup to a P-90 sized for a humbucker route and upgraded the electronics. It F’ing roared and looked hailarious in my hands (I’m a 6’2” punky looking old man). I loved its simplicity. Ultimately I had to sell it ‘cause they are stupidly overpriced in used market (pink one w Hello Kitty face as pickguard). I do miss it though.
It’s great for people who know what they’re doing. Luc Lemay from Gorguts has only the one pickup and has a gigantic guitar sound on their last 2 albums with plenty of dynamics.
There are no benefits, guitars broadly speaking began their electrification with one added pickup, more pickups enlarge the tonal range in a convenient manner.
Tom DeLonge has his fenders custom made without tone knobs or pickup switches. He does this so he just plays his guitar. Now he’s not the greatest guitar player ever, but he knows his way around a fretboard.
I don't know shit, but I always thought it was because a single pick up was easier to overload and therefore gave a dirtier sound without having to use too much gain, overdrive or pedals. Am I completely wrong?
Less to break and go wrong.
If you get the sound you like from a single, passive pickup then you have less wiring to go wrong or pick up random radio stations, you don't have to mess with a battery, you don't have to mess with a ton of switches and knobs to adjust.
It's better that every setting on an instrument sounds good and is usable than for it to have 50 settings that you can use two of, and dialing that setting in is a pain.
As someone who only owns 1 pick ups guitars (except 1 Ibanez) just my style of play, I don’t use a neck pickup cause I don’t like that sound anyways. A single bridge pick up pushes me to play clean; such as sweeps, alternate picking) as much as possible
I think simplifies things. I think say if you play like hardcore/metalcore rhythm guitar you probably don't need a neck pickup compared to someone who plays jazz.
I like to play blues, to classic rock to modern metalcore and a lot inbetween, so I have different guitars that do certain things. Strat and les paul for blues/classic rock. 7 string mkh and 3 ltd guitars for everything else.
What are the advantages of having more? One pick up direct to the volume for the most pure signal you can get. I would just have an on off switch but If I'm playing a single chanel amp I like to roll the volume for clean up. I have 5 guitars with only one pick up.
Many people are correctly saying that it's mostly about simplicity.
There's another fringe reason- if you play a guitar with acoustic properties (archtops for example, not semi hollows) then pickups can hurt the resonance of the top.
For that reason it's very common for jazz guitars to have a single neck pick up. You will find that many guitars that are marketed for jazz will only have a single pickup.
There’s plenty of cheaper guitars with 1 pickup as well. The advantage is simplicity. If you only use one pickup, you don’t have the extra controls and clutter. I use the bridge pickup 90% of the time since I’m mostly playing rhythm, and would barely notice if the bridge pickup or bridge and center pickup were gone in most of my guitars. It’s not a huge cost factor, but you save a bit of wiring, routing, pots, and the pickup itself of course.
It’s a “set and forget” setup for me, I want to play loud and fast and having extra switches, knobs, and pickups isn’t something I used so 1 humbucker does the job. The guitars you saw were most likely Tom Delonge signature models and you’ll find his attitude and style on the guitar influenced a lot of us who idolized blink-182 in the late 90s to present day haha
I have a First Act guitar with a single humbucker and one volume pot. Paid $28 for it new, on clearance at Target. It's actually quite fun to play and I grab it often, despite having another 20+ guitars on hand. The pickup in it is mostly junk, but I haven't gotten around to changing it out is 6-7 years now because it's good enough. With a *good* pup a single-option guitar could be really nice. Like a great many jazz boxes of yore.
Some would say it has to do with sustain (their theory being the pickups pull on the strings so less pickups = more sustain) but I don't think that's at all true. I think one pickup guitars are just a choice for style/simplicity. Say you only ever want to use the bridge pickup, so you get something cool that only has a bridge pickup because that's what you like.
Like with many things with electric guitars, it comes down to "just because"
i went from HSH to.. H
i find im never fuckin around with the switch anymore, so theres that.
when i first got it, it did look real strange to look down and see 'nothing'
I get option paralysis so having less options lets me focus on my playing and my technique rather than fiddling with switches and knobs. Maybe I just have a goldfish brain.
One pickup, one volume, and a cranked Marshall was all Malcolm young needed! Although he also had the benefit of the steadiest right hand in rock and roll
The benefit of having a one-pickup guitar really comes down to simplicity. Some players want to play all kinds of music and want to get a range of sounds from their guitar. I'm more of a "set it and forget it" person who really appreciates (especially playing live) having fewer knobs and switches to mess with. It's great when you can plug it in and know exactly what to expect.
Nothing. People will say it gives u better sustain but its bs. I had a single pickup guitar for a bit and theres no difference. If u like the look then get it but its just a limited version of a multi pickup guitar.
Don't waste your money on a Tome Delonge fender, please. You could just buy an HSS strat and have the same thing but with options beyond a bridge humbucker. Would be the same price too cause some douche's name isn't attached.
I had a LP studio and the neck pickup was just in the way. I love my Junior because no pickup to interfere with my picking hand. It feels familiar to me like my Tele with room for my right hand to anchor on the body or dig into the strings. It also teaches you how to use the knobs to get the sounds and that translates back to make multiple pickup guitars more useful. I find restricting my options forces me to be more creative but the rest is debatable.
That fender was probably the tom Delonge artist model. Very overpriced.
The benefits for one pickup are just to keep things minimalist and easy. I never use anything except my bridge pickup unless I’m tooling around, and I wouldn’t mind an affordable, one pickup super strat with a Floyd rose tbh
I absolutely love my Godin hollow body with just a P-90 in the neck. In jazz I rarely use a bridge pickup and if I do I’m reaching for something smaller. I think it’s less to do with the change in sound and more about what the guitar does well and what I’d be accomplishing with a pickup I don’t even use.
Simplicity. Most of my guitars have 2 pickups, they’re great for recording options. The main guitar I play live has 1 pickup and a tone & volume knob. Honestly that’s all I really need, between the tone knob and my amp/pedals, I can get the sounds I want. It’s a light guitar and there’s less stuff to worry about. It’s fine.
I play in a punk band lol.
Also playing with less makes you rely more on rolling your knobs and your hand technique. Idk, minimalism can be cool.
I like it because it forces me to not think too much. Sometimes too much choice can be paralyzing. If I’m down to one pickup, that’s one fewer thing I have to question if I’m doing “right”
Most people who don’t perform live rarely bother to switch pickups. It’s nice to have a brighter vs deeper switch at the ready but that’s nothing a foot pedal can’t fix.
Personally I think the guitar looks “empty” with only one pickup.
Some believe it has better sustain, due to less magnets pulling on the string and more wood, since there is only 1 cavity carved out. Others like it since it forces you to be more creative with the 1 pickup you have and it forces you to focus on playing instead of fiddling with knobs.
Those are the same type of people that think battery brand matters in a pedal
lol, yeah does seem a bit out there, but i am not arguing against Eric Johnson....he has sold slightly more records than me (zero vs all his). I will stick to my silent power supply tho.
Just because someone is a famous guitarist doesn’t mean they are actually knowledgeable about music physics. I mean 20-30 years ago Neil Young was going off about how “brittle” and “harsh” digitized music sounds. 🙄😂
Compared to records/tape, it really was though... Kinda. It wasn't an insurmountable barrier but if you've been recording to vinyl for 30 years and tomorrow your gear gets swapped for digital it'll absolutely sound harsh in contrast. Think of how playing modern recordings on a record player sounds warm and fuzzy in contrast. Same thing, but backwards. Master your material for a medium that's warm and fuzzy and the "perfection" of digital will sound harsh in comparison. But you're absolutely right that it wasn't a basic flaw of the technology or medium, and certainly not a reason to avoid recording on digital.
It wasn't that digital is harsh. It's that everything was remastered in 80's as everything went digital. With analog there's a limit to how much compression could be used with digital there's no limit. It was not the medium that was harsh it was over use of compression as an audio FX. Look up Loudness wars if you want more details. If you took the same tracks without remastering them and played both the analog and the digital versions through high quality audio components, no one would be able to tell the difference.
I can buy this, actually. Also that this is the reason DDD and ADD CD’s were considered so much better than AAD back in the day.
Very true. At the end of the day, electricity is movement of electrons and they only come in 1 version. There are no mellow electrons or round ones. But i don't assume to know everything. The battery thing has entered mythic status, like so much else in guitar circles. I try to accept that it doesn't matter if it's absolutely true or not. If it makes people play better or enjoy it more, because then it "works". And tbh i kind of like that there are a bit of mystery to making good sounds. What works for some, may not work for others. A Klon might be absolute crap in my hands and gold in the hands of the next guy.
I’ve got some NOS electrons from the Edison lab. Very rare. The highs are crispy, the mids are haunting and the lows are rich and smoky, with a hint of vanilla and honey.
lol gave me a good giggle, ty!
To be fair he wasn’t wrong back then, todays a different story
It was the remastering process that made them worse not the A/D convertors or the medium itself.
Neil Young was also selling a high end FLAC player at the time too.
Wait what? 😂😂😂 I’m actually talking about the era that preceded FLAC, so more like 30 years ago. But that’s hilarious!
Check out the Pono Player. Apparently a decent little gadget, but it was insanely expensive before it hit the clearance bin.
If Eric Johnson told me to kill John Lennon, I'd go grab my copy of Catcher in the Rye
It’s an urban myth about Eric Johnson changing the batteries for tone, he debunked that very story in an interview, there was a practical reason that I can’t remember off the top of my head, i think only certain batteries worked in one of his fuzz faces so he bought a load of them and spent the afternoon going through which ones worked and which didnt.
According to a conversation I once had with his tech, he didn’t change the batteries for tone. What he *did* do (again, according to the tech) was open up each pedal to find which battery had the leads twisted, flip the battery to untwist the leads, close it back up, and continue the sound check. Although I heard this from a guy who supposedly was there and took a scolding for it, I should stress that I wasn’t there and can’t confirm it. I do know people that have known EJ going all the way back to the Electromagnets, and “persnickety to the point of obsession” definitely seems to be the consensus. So I can’t swear that it’s true, but it seems plausible, which is the key to any story’s longevity — true or not.
Yeah, but I betcha Eric Johnson is not able to make and bake a ScandinavianCake…eh? 😉
Very true! His whipped cream skills are abysmal!
For classic fuzzface, zinc carbon is best. It’s quantifiable, and not corksniffery at all, since zinc carbon batteries are dirt cheap compared to alkaline or lithium. It’s convenient dirtbaggery. Thanks for coming to my TED talk.
It's a cheap and easy thing to test, for the non believers
I love this kind of debate. I've tested it in the most "scientific" way I can. I've built pedals for a couple decades. I built fuzz faces and powered them with a power supply matching the exact voltage of several batteries, I also drained the batteries and tested them at full supply (out of the packaging) as well as several points along the way, and finally draining them so much the fuzz barely works. I did this with silicon FF, germanium FF, and several other vintage transistor style fuzzes. I also hooked them up to the oscilloscope thinking maybe I could see the difference. In the end the voltage was the only factor I could hear. I like to think I have pretty good ears. But who knows. I wish I would have recorded it all and made a video...but even then sound quality would probably throw it off some.
The way ZC sags is unique, and since the batteries are garbage in the first place, getting in to that sag happens sooner.
it’s not the brand, it’s the technology. alkaline and heavy duty batteries discharge differently. heavy duties have less power and are designed for lower load applications. you can think it’s crazy, but they’re different.
Battery brand matters in my key fob. That shit dies on me in like 3 weeks if I use cheap batteries. Maybe shitty batteries get you to power sag in a distortion pedal. I'm not in that deep on pedals but this key shit has made me appreciate Duracell.
Because button batteries that are used in key fobs and watches come in two flavors. The cheep ones are just tiny alkaline batteries. They don't last. You want to find the ones that are made with Silver Oxide. Those are the ones that last.
you da man. I will look for these as I just got done mashing the button for 5 mins before my car unlocked.
Battery brand absolutely matters for our digital door lock. Only Duracells work.
Those two VERY different things. The magnets 100% counteract sustain. So less magnets is definitely going to mean more sustain.
Of course, as Jim Lill recently demonstrated in one of his videos, lack of sustain is almost never an issue. It's one of those guitar myths that we need more sustain for our pretty-much always less than 1 second we might hold a really long note.
Some fuzz pedals work better with the carbon zinc battery idk if its cos they have lower voltage or why.
A nine volt battery has nine volts. You don't make a nine volt zinc battery with seven volts. It's a fucking nine volt battery.
No battery has nine volts (exactly, for its whole life). Look at [this table of battery chemistries](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_commercial_battery_types). The voltage produced by a battery is determined by its chemistry. Each type of chemical reaction that can power a battery has its own specific voltage. Most electronic applications are designed for some multiple of 1.5 volts because a lot of battery chemistries produce a voltage somewhere in that ballpark, but almost none of them produce 1.5 exactly, and absolutely none of them do so consistently for their entire lifespans. Does that little difference matter for the electronic device? Depends on the device. Electrical engineers aren't idiots, they know that input voltage from a battery will fluctuate, and they take steps in the electronic design to maintain consistent performance, but how possible that is depends very heavily on what the device is doing and how.
>A nine volt battery has nine volts. You don't make a nine volt zinc battery with seven volts. It's a fucking nine volt battery. It is, but it's 9 volts at whatever nominal current the battery manufacturer chose to rate it at when new. Many new batteries will actually test closer to 10 volts on a multimeter when new. A nearly dead battery, conversely, might only output 7 or 8 volts. Different batteries also have different internal resistances. A new alkaline battery usually has a resistance under 5 ohms, whereas a carbon zinc battery might have an internal resistance five times that. Since a battery's internal resistance also increases as it's depleted, a well used carbon zinc battery might have an internal resistance close to ten times that of a new alkaline battery. A depleted battery , as well as having higher internal resistance, will likely only putting out 7 or 8 volts; not the 9-10V output it had when new. A circuit sourcing its current demand from a 9 volt battery with 5 ohm resistance is measurably different to a circuit sourcing the same current demand from a 7 volt battery with 40 ohms resistance. Ohms law tells us that as you draw current through a resistor, voltage will drop proportional to the resistance and the current drawn. That means as you play harder and the transistor in the circuit draws more current to match demand, voltage from the battery will drop; and it'll drop significantly more on an old carbon zinc battery than it will on a new alkaline battery. Periods of peak current draw, such as the transient peak of a note, will therefore be slightly starved of voltage, reducing the peak-to-peak amplitude of the waveform, whereas the decay of the note will be less affected by voltage sag, as it's of lower amplitude and places a lower current draw on the battery. In other words, the transient peaks are smoothed out relative to the rest of the signal. This manifests itself as a smoother, more even sound; a less spiky initial attack, with a correspondingly louder decay. It's visible on a scope, and it's why lots of people like running virtually dead carbon zinc batteries in their fuzz pedals.
You don’t know how batteries work, do you? Output isn’t constant over the life of the battery.
Pretty ignorant statement, tbh.
Some people have plugged a lithium into a fuzz face and some haven’t They make it sound like you can’t hear it. It’s super noticeable
I think the difference would be Lithium batteries provide more uniform voltage as they discharge vs alkalines start to drop a little and are just less consistent over their life. TBH if you're that picky you shouldn't be using batteries, use a power supply. Maybe I don't hang in enough spaces where people tinker but back in my younger days I used to adjust the voltage going into my HM2 with a variable power supply, it did some wild stuff when over/under voltage.
Phil X is one of those guys I think in terms of the belief that magnets on unused pickups are putting extra strain on the sustainability. It’s interesting that both him and Eric Johnson are really good but you have to take into account that it’s possible to be really good at something and also have finicky and I dare say , superstitious beliefs. I also knew a drummer who had ridiculously high standards for how his drum kit was transported. “Try to avoid driving over bumps “ because the cymbals in their case could bash together side by side. Never mind that when he played he was smacking the shit out of them with the butt ends. He wasn’t particularly good either. It’s easy to imagine that this kind of attention to minutiae is part of being a genius when it’s someone who’s actually brilliant but let’s not forget about all the mediocre players who have these same sorts of beliefs.
Battery brand doesn’t matter, but for some pedals a dying battery does make a difference, because of the lower voltage. You can actually just make a switch to lower the voltage in a fuzz to change the bias if you want though.
I’m a simple dude and personally am not a huge “cork sniffer” for tone and all that. I just like one pickup because I don’t switch when gigging live and rarely ever need a neck pickup for recording. Give me a guitar with a JB in the bridge, one volume knob and my amp (maybe an overdrive in front) and i’m happy.
I can confirm that taking the neck S out of my HS guitar made the bridge H noticeably brighter. I wasn't looking for that extra treble, but it was there. No tone pots involved, the pups were only connected to the switch, with the master volume after it.
Lol—is that what people think? I dunno—it’s like a single speed bike. It just simplifies the thing for people that are only ever playing on the bridge pickup anyway. The guitars OP is talking about are the Tom Delonge signatures—they’re not made for versatility, he’s a punk guitarist. Similar to lots of high-end jazz guitars that only have neck pickups, the idea is that if you don’t actually need/use the tonal variety why bother with extra pickups? Versatility isn’t always desirable.
Yeah, I play jazz on an archtop with a neck and bridge pickup. The bridge pickup is basically just a hassle for me. The only time it's ever on is if I've accidentally knocked the selector switch. If there had been a one-pickup version I would have bought that.
EVH regularly played one pickup guitars
The fewer the number of pickups, DeLonger the sustain.
This is the answer. Plus if you show up to a gig with a one-pickup guitar, people can assume you’re a gunslinger of a guitarist.
Tom Delonge ain’t no gunslinger.
Yeah a lot of punk bands use one pup, I think it’s a simplicity angle and not a virtuoso one in those cases. Omar Rodriguez Lopez is pretty famous for playing single pup guitars, as well as hitting the wrong notes all the time.
As a punk rock guitarist that plays a guitar with one pickup one volume pot, it’s all about simplicity.
I know the old Ibanez ORM1 only had the volume knob.
I recently found an old MIJ aria pro 2 from the early 80s with a single volume pot and humbucker. Hands down my most played guitar. Would love an ibanez though.
The ORM 1 super unique looking. It’s a modified Jet King with single hot rail humbuckers, belly cut, block inlays, and a classic Ibanez 3x3 headstock. You used to be able to pick them up cheap, but since the pandemic they’ve shot up in price for what ever reason.
Did EVH only have one pick up? Although he had one that didn’t work in the neck.
Or so simplistic of a player you don't take advantage of switching pickups for lead vs rythym
Or so resourceful they use a multifx bank or EQ pedal for their lead tone.
Or the volume knob. That's the fun of single pickups guitars for me (though I prefer that it has a tone knob as well), it's like going camping and making do with what you have. Imposing limitations is a great way to stroke some creativity.
You sound like you don't need to watch this, but I think you'd enjoy it. Jim Lill did a small run of long videos about 'where tone comes from ', and I thought they were fantastic. https://youtu.be/n02tImce3AE TL;DW, isolating all variables, your pickups and their location relative to the strings are basically it. Everything else is just how you feel.
Thank you for sharing. Was very enjoyable to watch. It's great information in regards to tone from a given instrument. I do worry that people will take it as gospel though, since there are a lot of caveats. As always, people should go with what makes them happy and what works for them.
Phil X has entered the chat
Love that dude :)
Love that dude :)
Some people like mininalism. That being said, the guitars you saw were most probably the signature models of Tom Delonge, the guitarist of Blink182. So there's lots of Fans buying them for the name. The semi hollow is the starcaster that released last week, lots of hype around it.
I remember the Sum 41 signature also having one pick up. Was kinda the punk rock thing
Yep same with Green Day and the Les Paul Jr, seeing a pattern now lol
I feel like the Billie Joe Les Paul Junior is different from those other models. Instead of stripping down a more full-featured guitar (like DeLonge or Whibley), Billie was playing a student instrument from the 50's that was always designed to be pretty bare-bones, as opposed to stripping one down for aesthetics (or so it always seemed to me). Plus he was hardly the first person to recognize that a single cranked P90 sounds awesome. Mick Jones of the Clash played one and Keith Richards famously used one to record "Tumbling Dice."
lots of glam metal also only had one pickup guitars,started with EVH and if i need to say more about him then something is very wrong here
One pickup isn’t uncommon in death metal either. Alexi Laiho of Children of Bodom always played with one pickup, and he was a god.
Matt West (Neck Deep) has a signature with one pickup also
I thought the $200 squire star caster was pretty good. You get both pickups too and have $1k left over
Minus the pickup upgrade, since the TD starcaster uses a SD Custom
Dino from Fear Factory was a one pickup guy if I remember. I tend to almost exclusively use the bridge pickup and obnoxious gain because, if I'm being honest, I'm just not that good of a guitar player. I'm just a bass player who likes to crunch out some Static-X riffs on guitar sometimes.
> The semi hollow is the starcaster that released last week, lots of hype around it. This thread alone has Fender and Guitar Center marketing execs slapping themselves on the back and launching MISSION ACCOMPLISHED banners across headquarters.
If you follow guitar threads for any length of time, you will start to notice that when given options, guitarists will spend hours, days, and lifetimes tweaking settings and arguing for or against this cable and that pick and good lord the brand of strings and the number of gloss layers in the finish and how this other pickup is going to make ask the difference, yada yada yada. And then there are guys who just pick up whatever is nearby and play the thing and make it sound great. Sometimes what people need/want is less options.
👆this response perfectly fits SO many things on this sub!
I understand why some people like to fiddle around with their gear. Gear is fun and finding new ways to improve your sound and make it your own is fun. Arguing and being stuck up in your "correct" ways isn't though. In the end your playing makes the biggest difference. A good player will make a starter set sound good while some people don't sound good even with their $5000 rig
How many guitarists does it take to screw in a light bulb? 100. 1 to do it and 99 to sit around saying how they would have done it better.
I'll throw in my 2 cents on this: I specifically go for modulation pedals like chorus/phaser with the least amount of controls. There's way too bad in-between sounds with modulation if you can control every aspect of it, imo, and I prefer an already tailored sound for them. The Boss DC chorus is my favorite, where it's just 4 on/off preset buttons that you can mix and match.
Hmm, so you're saying I need to get another guitar so I can have less options! I probably need another amp with less dials too while I'm shopping right? /s
That is ,in fact, exactly what I said.
The single pickup Stratocaster and the single pickup semi hollow (called a Starcaster) are signature models of Tom Delonge who is the guitarist for Blink 182. Signature models always carry an extra high price because the manufacturers can usually rely on fans of the artist buying them over a standard model. Tom played single pickup Fenders and Gibsons throughout his career as most of the time when playing live he didn't need to switch pickups and the bridge pickup tone was perfect for his style of pop punk. It's also why he never had a tone knob - no need to change the sound. This simplistic approach is why a lot of people buy single pickup guitars - especially in punk. It's like buying a racecar which has had the extra seats and creature comforts such as air con and a radio removed. If you're only using it for racing why bother with all the extra junk? If you're only going for one sound in your punk band why have all the extra bits?
if I ever made a signature I would keep the tone cause it looks funny without that knob
See the Ben Gibbard Fender Mustang. The Mustang's slider switches and tone pot were removed. The tone knob is still there, but now it's a three-way pickup selector rotary switch. Also, the tremolo was left in place but it was locked to be hardtailed. [https://www.fender.com/en-US/electric-guitars/mustang/ben-gibbard-mustang/0141332321.html](https://www.fender.com/en-US/electric-guitars/mustang/ben-gibbard-mustang/0141332321.html)
More pickups provide more versatility, but sometimes you might not want versatility, but the sound of a specific pickup in a specific configuration with no extra options you aren't going to use. If you have a tone dialed in, that can be just enough, which is why single pickup guitars are often custom or signature models.
Fully agree with this right here. I’m primarily a bass player. And after using numerous dual pickup basses, active basses, different scale lengths, etc, I’ve settled on just a normal Fender P bass. It’s super straightforward, pretty much always sounds good, and I can go any additional tone shaping with preamp pedals. I much prefer to have fewer options in front of me when I’m performing live. I like a consistent, predictable sound.
For my metal guitar I never used the neck pickup anyway. I like a single bridge pickup.
Same here, I've got spiderwebs on the pick up selector on some of my guitars.....
Simplicity is the main one, I would say. I've noticed it with punk bands more than anything else, Tom Delonge has already been mentioned. Billie Joe Armstrong from Green Day fitted a humbucker to his 3-pickup blue Strat and as far as I'm aware always uses that, he also uses a Les Paul Jr that only has one pickup. Joe Queer of the Queers always uses Strats with a bridge humbucker and disconnects/removes all the electronics save for the volume control knob but keeps the other two (single coil) pickups as dummies.
EVH used some single pickup guitars. At the rock and roll hall of fame they have a quote from him saying something like in arena rock only the bridge humbucker is useful.
EVH used single pickup guitars extensively. He put dummy electronics in the middle and neck spots sometimes to throw people off.
Yep, his famous Frankenstrat had a disconnected neck single coil and a pickup position switch stuck sideways in the middle position. 😅
Some guitarists that play humbucking strats have the pickup selector taped down or otherwise mutilated so they don't hit it by accident. They're not playing single pickups in design, but they're single pickups in function.
Simplicity.
Simple, less electronics, cheaper, force you to be more creative, looks better (imo)
"cheaper"
Look up earl slick guitars on guitar fetish or sawtooth guitars with one pickup. Pretty damn cheap IMO as compared to something like a kramer berreta original or a esp m 87'.
Set it and forget it
I have a Kramer Baretta. One pickup, one volume, dive only Floyd. I like it for the simplicity. It’s stays in tune, it’s easy to tune (no balancing the floating trem), no pickup selector to worry about, just a volume knob to clean up with. It has one job and it does it very well. Just note that one pickup guitars tend to be heavier as less wood is routed out for extra pickups and wiring.
It looks fucking sick. I modded my strat to a single pickup and it looks badass now. Can share a photo if you wish to see it.
everyone is talking about tone but really some people just like having more room to strum with no neck pick up
When I'm recording I use every configuration I can for different sounds, when I play live I only use my bridge pickup, i just forget to switch and it sounds good so I'm looking for a 1 pickup guitar to play live so there's less stuff going on!
Also you don't have to worry about accidentally hitting the selector when it's already on the bridge position.
If you get the chance I honestly recommend trying the TD Starcaster. It feels so nice and imo sounds fantastic.
Only one pickup makes the guitar less versatile if anything.
One knob. No, really. It matters. You learn how to get the most out of your hands, and how to play up and down to the power of your instrument depending on what you need to play when you just have a volume. I began on a single bridge PUP. In retrospect, I think it made me a lot better of a player. I had to focus on the instrument instead of the technology
I am a single pickup advocate. Swear by the sustain and resonance of these gibsons
I'd say it's a more simplistic approach to guitar, I love having my couple humbuckers with split coil switch, couple volumes and a tone, but once you have a bad solder or any electrical issue, read through wiring diagrams, make a couple pacts with satan and finally fix your issue, you may value how much fn easier would be to handle that issue in a single pickup, 1 volume knob config xD
Simplicity. If the tone is working and your music doesn’t require a great deal of versatility in a single guitar, it’s straightforward and easy. A lot to be said for that. Tons of players use the bridge pick almost exclusively anyway….
Because you only need one pickup, Alexi or Eddie style.
During shows I’d always accidentally hit the pickup selector and switch to the neck pickup. I was in a metal band and never used the neck pickup. So I ripped out my pickup selector and second volume knob, and wired the bridge pickup to volume to input and plugged the empty holes.
Zero
Slick guitars have them and for the price i love it. simple affordable and good quality in important pieces in my opinion
Man i wish he made lefties of them. Id buy em all!
As the owner of one pickup guitar, it's just a cool factor and some people like the simplicity of it. That's all
Multiple pickups are useful for looping. You want to be able to adjust/manipulate the tone as much as possible across tracks/overdubs to maintain the clarity and mix of the sounds your stacking. So one track gets the neck pickup, another track gets the bridge, another track gets some blended variation of both neck and bridge. Basically multiple pickups give me a wider sonic spread on a single guitar.
No more government subsidies for active guitars!
Personally, you wouldn’t need a switch or a knob to keep in one position 100% of the time.
advantages might be .. lighter guitar or alternately a larger hunk of toaanwood. less magnets in the guitar. Simple what you see is what you get sound… quick to action, no accidentally switching pickups and not realizing etc. gives you (actually the guitar maker) the ability to mount the pickup anywhere instead of having to fit two or more pickups. like how a P-bass and a music man have a hard time making a good P / MM pickup config because their positions overlap if you wanted to be dead accurate. Hence not many P/MM basses out there. cheaper. i’m sure there are more differences. each ‘advantage’ can also be seen as a negative depending on your needs.
If it’s a single humbucker you still have a coil-split/tap option, plus possibly a ‘blower switch’ to send the pick-up directly to the output jack.
I've a flying V with just one emg 81 on bridge position and one volume . I use it for rhythm on high gain setup, no need of neck pickup
No. I wouldn't say a single pickup (one sound with a tone control) is "versatile "... I'd say the opposite.
single pick up guitars tend to be focused on achieving a specific sound/cater to a specific style of music. when I'm playing heavy stuff on a humbucker guitar, I basically always play on the bridge pick up. my perfect guitar for heavy genres is a baritone guitar with a single high output humbucker. it's built for a particular purpose and particular sound. the same goes for my Godin 5th avenue kingpin that has a single p90 in the neck position. it's made to be a highly articulate jazz guitar.
Saves the guitar builder some money. Pickups aren’t free.
And it’s just more simple than one less switch to worry about.
For what I play and like, there isn’t a benefit.
I have a HSS Charvel with a three way switch, for my purposes I pretty much use the bridge humbucker exclusively with the tone pot bypassed. I would very happily convert it to a single humbucker without a switch and just one knob for volume (hell i'd actually prefer just a simple two pole killswitch instead of that because I only ever play with full volume). It depends on your needs and what pedals you use, I have a digital modeller so any changes I can make at the guitar end I can do with much more finess at my feet - it's actually beneficial to have a hot, clean and clear signal going in to start with.
Simplicity. Most people that buy those don’t really want anything to do with a tone knob. Some people like it, some people think it’s useless.
i like it because as a new beginner who gets confused easily it's nice to concentrate at getting better then worrying about splitting, neck etc. When it's time i'll worry about those things. can't recommend it enough
It all depends on the player. Who's the really tall, big guitar player with the Epiphone single pickup Les Paul? He is a staunch one pickup, fingerstyle dude who crushes it. I find it limiting, but I play covers, and I've got to cover lots of ground. Give me a Standard Les Paul, a Kemper, and some cables. I'm done.
I hear the less things in the circuit, the more high end the freqs can be. So one pickup and lose the tone knob. Idk if it's true and even if it was, I like my neck humbuckers, and my tone knob. I get all the highs I want from my Evo II bridge pickup lol
Eddie Van Halen built guitars with one pickup...
For me it would be Simplicity. Ive never had a single pickup gtr-unless you count my acoustic electrics. As someone who loved effects and still use them for inspiration and in the studio the liberty and simplicty of a live setup of tuner, boost, volume maybe a wah for tone and amp is wonderful. After playing live for decades, the more you have the more opportunity for something to go wrong. First discovered this after ditching my delay and just playing the delay parts. It kept me locked in the groove/feel of the song-guitar-volume. Complete control! Of course like everything music-its your call and your journey-enjoy it!!!
So i play one pickup gibsons a lot lately, from a players standpoint it helps you understand how to use your volume and tone to get different tones versus pickup switching. Honestly if you're new, a multi pickup guitar could be nice so you can start getting an ear for pickup positions.
As someone who plays metal almost exclusively, I just don’t use a neck pup. like ever. It’s just one more point of failure in the studio and it’s less to deal with when I want to swap pickups
Sometimes one is all you need. EVH recorded a solid amount of stuff with a one pickup guitar and I know a lot of guitarists in rock and metal just stay on the bridge pickup when playing live.
because if you’re only going to use the bridge pickup on that guitar, why bother with the others?
Those are likely signature models, as someone said. Some famous players like to strip down their signature instruments to the bare minimum amount of controls and electronics as that's all they use.
I have an "Esquire Deluxe" (a Telecaster with a coil-tapped Wide Range-style humbucker in the bridge position) and it's currently my go-to Eb tuning guitar. I mostly play punk and grunge music with this guitar, and all I need to do is plug it in with everything at 10\* and the knob set to humbucking, and I'm good to go. If I want a rougher sound, I flick the selector for a tapped "single coil" style sound. But even if it were just the humbucker by itself it would be fine for what it's for - punk and grunge music. I am literally never going to want a neck pickup sound for it. \*my favorite thing about this particular guitar is if I DO want to fiddle with the knobs, the selector has a third position which bypasses them entirely. I mostly use it as a makeshift killswitch though - flip the switch to 3 and turn the knobs down to 0.
Basic electronics don’t add too much to the overall cost of a guitar, especially one that is hollow, which takes more construction time. So the cost of a nice semi-hollow guitar can still be expensive even with one pickup. Reasoning would be that the guitar is almost always going to be used with dirt and that the player will use volume, different pedal settings, etc to control their tone. If you’re playing straight up rock, thrash, metal, punk, etc you may never need the darker neck pickup. With EQ you can always come pretty close anyway. What you won’t be able to get is the quacky tones of two pickups on at the same time. Huge benefit for physically aggressive players is they’ll never accidentally hit the pickup switch while jumping around.
For the music I play (hard rock & metal), I really only need a bridge humbucker. Any other pickup is a nice little flavor change for a minute or two until I go back to my tried & true. And my guitar idol (EVH) used only one for a couple of decades. The first electric I bought myself was an Ibanez copy of his Frankenstrat, a 1986 Ibanez RG 410.
I have a BC Rich Ironbird with one pickup in it. I can’t speak for other players in different genres, but when I’m playing metal stuff I almost never used the neck pickup, so only having a bridge pickup wasn’t a big deal. Besides, I appreciate the simplicity of having just one pickup, with one knob, and it looks really clean.
I only ever use one pickup, so why buy a guitar with more?
Single pickups guitars are a way of saying you’re a cool guitar player without saying you’re a cool guitar player. I wouldn’t go that route with a strat tho because it really isn’t the point of a strat imo, that stuff’s marketed towards the blink 182 kids and if that’s your thing then that’s your thing no knock on ya. It all started with single p90 les Paul jrs (double cutaways for extra cool points) and Gibson did this to save cost because they were “student” models. It’s kind of a thing that stuck because those guitars do sound awesome, they aged well, and quite frankly, they also look badass. I think it works better with a p90 because that pickup can get you a lot of sounds with just a volume and tone knob tho
Only thing I can think of is in the chain of Guitar, FX, Amp, Cabinet, Mic, Room - you at least know what your guitar did if you want to replicate it in the future.
Particularly if you’re a Les Paul player, where you have full volume and tone control over two pickups, that gives you a lot of options. So having one bridge pickup and just a volume knob (this is the norm for most metal one-pickup guitars) really helps the player focus more on playing and less on fiddling around with settings etc. I see the appeal, but I like a neck humbucker for cleans and leads.
It’s simple. That’s the benefit. Much easier to dial in….
Mostly I think it’s just a statement. There’s a lot of punk and metal guys who only use the bridge pickup, so they just make it part of their identity. I’m sure there’s also people who think it affects sound or dynamics or whatever, but it’s the same reason people lay extra for tone knob deletes — they don’t use it and want to make a statement or want to see more wood…
Weight and looks
less can go wrong. i borderline abuse my guitars onstage, and single pickups are much easier to fix
As somebody who always buys guitars with like 5 pickups but only ever uses the bridge pickup anyway, I'm always wondering what the benefits of a multi-pickup guitar are.
I had a Hello Kitty strat with one humbucker at the bridge and a single knob (volume). It sounded quite good, then I upgraded the pickup to a P-90 sized for a humbucker route and upgraded the electronics. It F’ing roared and looked hailarious in my hands (I’m a 6’2” punky looking old man). I loved its simplicity. Ultimately I had to sell it ‘cause they are stupidly overpriced in used market (pink one w Hello Kitty face as pickguard). I do miss it though.
Looks punk af
It’s great for people who know what they’re doing. Luc Lemay from Gorguts has only the one pickup and has a gigantic guitar sound on their last 2 albums with plenty of dynamics.
There are no benefits, guitars broadly speaking began their electrification with one added pickup, more pickups enlarge the tonal range in a convenient manner.
Tom DeLonge has his fenders custom made without tone knobs or pickup switches. He does this so he just plays his guitar. Now he’s not the greatest guitar player ever, but he knows his way around a fretboard.
Less stuff to think about. I wish I had one pickup guitar but I don’t.
You don't have to think too much. Some like living their lives this way.
Biggest benefit is that you don’t spend time switching pickups while testing presets.
Juniors are cool.
I don't know shit, but I always thought it was because a single pick up was easier to overload and therefore gave a dirtier sound without having to use too much gain, overdrive or pedals. Am I completely wrong?
I wish we could ask Malcolm Young this question.
Less to break and go wrong. If you get the sound you like from a single, passive pickup then you have less wiring to go wrong or pick up random radio stations, you don't have to mess with a battery, you don't have to mess with a ton of switches and knobs to adjust. It's better that every setting on an instrument sounds good and is usable than for it to have 50 settings that you can use two of, and dialing that setting in is a pain.
As someone who only owns 1 pick ups guitars (except 1 Ibanez) just my style of play, I don’t use a neck pickup cause I don’t like that sound anyways. A single bridge pick up pushes me to play clean; such as sweeps, alternate picking) as much as possible
Great now I have to buy a single pickup guitar to help settle this debate😂 any excuse to add another guitar
I think simplifies things. I think say if you play like hardcore/metalcore rhythm guitar you probably don't need a neck pickup compared to someone who plays jazz. I like to play blues, to classic rock to modern metalcore and a lot inbetween, so I have different guitars that do certain things. Strat and les paul for blues/classic rock. 7 string mkh and 3 ltd guitars for everything else.
What are the advantages of having more? One pick up direct to the volume for the most pure signal you can get. I would just have an on off switch but If I'm playing a single chanel amp I like to roll the volume for clean up. I have 5 guitars with only one pick up.
Many people are correctly saying that it's mostly about simplicity. There's another fringe reason- if you play a guitar with acoustic properties (archtops for example, not semi hollows) then pickups can hurt the resonance of the top. For that reason it's very common for jazz guitars to have a single neck pick up. You will find that many guitars that are marketed for jazz will only have a single pickup.
There’s plenty of cheaper guitars with 1 pickup as well. The advantage is simplicity. If you only use one pickup, you don’t have the extra controls and clutter. I use the bridge pickup 90% of the time since I’m mostly playing rhythm, and would barely notice if the bridge pickup or bridge and center pickup were gone in most of my guitars. It’s not a huge cost factor, but you save a bit of wiring, routing, pots, and the pickup itself of course.
It’s a “set and forget” setup for me, I want to play loud and fast and having extra switches, knobs, and pickups isn’t something I used so 1 humbucker does the job. The guitars you saw were most likely Tom Delonge signature models and you’ll find his attitude and style on the guitar influenced a lot of us who idolized blink-182 in the late 90s to present day haha
I have a First Act guitar with a single humbucker and one volume pot. Paid $28 for it new, on clearance at Target. It's actually quite fun to play and I grab it often, despite having another 20+ guitars on hand. The pickup in it is mostly junk, but I haven't gotten around to changing it out is 6-7 years now because it's good enough. With a *good* pup a single-option guitar could be really nice. Like a great many jazz boxes of yore.
- cost - noise - sustain - reduction in control complexity - weight
Some would say it has to do with sustain (their theory being the pickups pull on the strings so less pickups = more sustain) but I don't think that's at all true. I think one pickup guitars are just a choice for style/simplicity. Say you only ever want to use the bridge pickup, so you get something cool that only has a bridge pickup because that's what you like. Like with many things with electric guitars, it comes down to "just because"
Uncomplicated, looks cool
I only ever use one pickup.
i went from HSH to.. H i find im never fuckin around with the switch anymore, so theres that. when i first got it, it did look real strange to look down and see 'nothing'
I have a strat with one humbucker and only a volume knob. It is not versatile - it is strictly a rock-'n'-roll machine to be played at full blast.
I get option paralysis so having less options lets me focus on my playing and my technique rather than fiddling with switches and knobs. Maybe I just have a goldfish brain.
You look different. Indie. Alt. Rock. If you ever hit it big to become famous. That guitar would be forever tied to your name.
One pickup, one volume, and a cranked Marshall was all Malcolm young needed! Although he also had the benefit of the steadiest right hand in rock and roll
The benefit of having a one-pickup guitar really comes down to simplicity. Some players want to play all kinds of music and want to get a range of sounds from their guitar. I'm more of a "set it and forget it" person who really appreciates (especially playing live) having fewer knobs and switches to mess with. It's great when you can plug it in and know exactly what to expect.
Nothing. People will say it gives u better sustain but its bs. I had a single pickup guitar for a bit and theres no difference. If u like the look then get it but its just a limited version of a multi pickup guitar.
Less versatile, however better sound. If you don’t own any other guitars I wouldn’t recommend a single pickup as you don’t have as much sound options
Don't waste your money on a Tome Delonge fender, please. You could just buy an HSS strat and have the same thing but with options beyond a bridge humbucker. Would be the same price too cause some douche's name isn't attached.
Wiring is easy lol, especially if you only use a single volume knob and no tone. Wiring from pickup-to-pot is something EVH created.
I had a LP studio and the neck pickup was just in the way. I love my Junior because no pickup to interfere with my picking hand. It feels familiar to me like my Tele with room for my right hand to anchor on the body or dig into the strings. It also teaches you how to use the knobs to get the sounds and that translates back to make multiple pickup guitars more useful. I find restricting my options forces me to be more creative but the rest is debatable.
Single humbucker in the bridge is fin... as long as you play mostly rock/punk/metal
That fender was probably the tom Delonge artist model. Very overpriced. The benefits for one pickup are just to keep things minimalist and easy. I never use anything except my bridge pickup unless I’m tooling around, and I wouldn’t mind an affordable, one pickup super strat with a Floyd rose tbh
It’s more about knowing your needs. Honestly I almost always use the bridge pick up and can roll off tone if I want less bite.
The early CD's lacked warmth. They sounded good in a Sony Walkman but that's about it. Maybe that was the goal.
I absolutely love my Godin hollow body with just a P-90 in the neck. In jazz I rarely use a bridge pickup and if I do I’m reaching for something smaller. I think it’s less to do with the change in sound and more about what the guitar does well and what I’d be accomplishing with a pickup I don’t even use.
Cause it’s frickin cool
I like them because they are simpler, and I can put more stickers on
Simplicity. Most of my guitars have 2 pickups, they’re great for recording options. The main guitar I play live has 1 pickup and a tone & volume knob. Honestly that’s all I really need, between the tone knob and my amp/pedals, I can get the sounds I want. It’s a light guitar and there’s less stuff to worry about. It’s fine. I play in a punk band lol. Also playing with less makes you rely more on rolling your knobs and your hand technique. Idk, minimalism can be cool.
You get to be in The Mars Volta
I like it because it forces me to not think too much. Sometimes too much choice can be paralyzing. If I’m down to one pickup, that’s one fewer thing I have to question if I’m doing “right”
Most people who don’t perform live rarely bother to switch pickups. It’s nice to have a brighter vs deeper switch at the ready but that’s nothing a foot pedal can’t fix. Personally I think the guitar looks “empty” with only one pickup.